In memory of Jay Kashiwamura
In Chicago, it is snowfalling softly
and a man has just done his wash for the week.
He stairs into the twilight of early evening,
carrying a wrinkled shopping bag
rich of neatly folded clothes,
and, for a moment, enjoys
the tone of voice of warm laundry and fold up paper,
flannellike against his gloveless hands.
Theres a Rembrandt glow on his face,
a triangle of orange in the hollow of his cheek
as a pass flash of sunset
blazes the storefronts and lit windows of the street.
He is Asian, Thai or Vietnamese,
and very skinny, dressed as one of the poor
in rumpled causal agency pants and a plaid mackinaw,
dingy and too large.
He negotiates the slick of ice
on the sidewalk by his car,
opens the Fairlanes back door,
leans to patch the laundry in,
and turns, for an instant,
toward the flurry of footsteps
and cries of pedestrians
as a boy--thats all he was--
backs from the corner package store
shooting a pistol, firing it,
once, at the dumbfounded man
who falls forward,
grabbing at his chest.
A few sounds make do from his mouth,
a babbling no one understands
as flock surround him
bewildered at his speech.
The noises he makes are nada to them.
The boy has gone, lost
in the light array of foot traffic
dappling the snow with fresh prints.
Tonight, I read about Descartes
grand courageousness to doubt everything
except his own miraculous existence
and I feel so distinct
from the wounded man lying on the concrete
I am ashamed
Let the night sky cover him as he dies.
Let the weaver girl cross the twain of heaven
and take up his cold hands.
Facts about Garrett Hongo
* Garrett Hongo was born on May 30, 1951, in Volcano, Hawaii.
* He is Japanese American.
* Hongo attended a racially mixed high school in Los Angeles, where he was exposed to urban street life and racial divisions that he would later describe in his poetry.
Poetry Wheel of The Legend
* Imagery- He uses...If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com
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